A blog about homebrewing and craft beer in South Africa

BeerLab – the story behind by Lynnae Endersby

Last week I got an e-mail from Lynna Endersby telling me about the new home brewing supply store in Cape Town, Observatory.

I ask about the story behind and plans for the future. I got a long and really interested answer.

I fell in love with beer while backpacking in Europe, the styles and colours simply blew me away. Instead of doing the normal sightseeing I found myself hunting down as many different beer styles as I could. From there I was hooked.

Upon returning from my backpacking adventure I studied and qualified as a chef, I became fascinated with the science behind food, and beer followed suit. I ended up working in the magazine industry and found a South African home brewing store based in Johannesburg, there were none in Cape Town at the time. I immediately ordered a beer kit and anxiously waited for my post office slip to arrive so that I could pick up my stuff. Annoyingly, after unpacking the box I discovered that my fermentation vessel was broken. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I stumbled upon the Southyeasters website, they pointed me in the right direction and a few days later I had a fermentation vessel (aka bucket).

I had a lot of fun with my first few kit beers and slowly built up my equipment and knowledge. One thing that always bugged me was the waiting time when ordering ingredients. I regularly had a sudden urge to brew, only to discover that I didn´t have the right yeast or hops. I would have to order via the SA Post and that could take anything from a week to two (plus I had to stand in a queue!) Being a bit of a gadget freak I also found the selection of equipment to choose from very limited compared to the rest of the brewing world. I now do mostly all grain brews and am experimenting with some of the more sciencey stuff. When not running around for BeerLab you’ll find me reading a book on yeast or water chemistry.

Eventually I decided to start BeerLab — I wanted to help people who were just like me at the beginning, eager to start brewing with little knowledge not to mention the equipment needed. Similarly BeerLab also provides experienced brewers with access to quality ingredients and equipment.

I’m also shortly going to start hiring out equipment for those people who don’t want to buy a big pot, or know how to build their own immersion chiller, mash tun etc (or just don’t have the space to store it all) but still want to make beer.

We are still taking baby steps but I have big plans for BeerLab that I’ll hopefully be able share with everyone very soon.

coming up die main dnabeni drive to the circle the sunrise park is at the circle on the left. park at the tops and walk around the left of the building to the beerlab entrance at the back of tops.
I found the staff very helpful and the prices appropriately inflated for a dealer with not much competition in the area. With that aside, It is very nice to walk into a shopfront that has EVERYTHING you could possibly need to get a basic homebrew kit off the ground, from hydrometers to airlocks, taps with attachable bottle filling tube valves as well as bottles and bottle cappers, grains, malts, hops, carbonation drops, brew cans and much more. You can set yourself up with everything all in one place, and experiment with different flavors of beer in time. I am still prepping my first batch and very excited…. keen as heck to taste my first home brew.